William Delisle’s map of North Africa from 1707 shows the location of the mysterious island that one of the Canary Islands’ best waves is named for.
Just off the northwest coast of Africa lie the Canary Islands, a picture perfect chain made up of seven islands. Situated in the mid-Atlantic, the Canaries get hammered by swell, although you’d never know it by looking at surf media. The video below is Alex Zirke at San Borondón, an infamous big wave spot at the northern end of Tenerife, the largest of the seven Canary Islands. It’s a beautiful and dangerous place, fronted by a massive jagged cliff face. When a big west swell shows up on the charts, things get heavy, as Alex Zirke proved back in October.
Perhaps more interesting than the wave itself, though, is the story of where its name comes from. San Borondón is the Canary Islands’ mythical eighth island. Legend has it that it was named after an Irish monk named Saint Brendan, who was the first to step ashore sometime during the 15th century. During the Spanish conquest of the Canary Islands, sailors told of an island that was impossible to get to for a variety of strange reasons. Thick mists and sudden, violent storms kept them away from the place that was only visible for short periods of time.
Saint Brendan, though, made it. According to folklore–which differs depending on where you read it– he, along with 17 other monks, successfully landed on San Borondón, where they found “fire-hurling demons, floating crystal columns, and an island covered with trees and much vegetation.”
They spent six years there, building lives for themselves in the pursuit of their religion, when one day, the island began to mysteriously move. Frightened, they ran for their vessel and escaped, only to watch their island home sink into the sea.
Over the years, the legend grew–only it wasn’t a legend back then. Many swore to have landed on the island and explored it in its entirety, only to return to find it had vanished. Even Christopher Columbus believed it existed, although he never claimed to have sailed there. Thousands swore they’d seen the island, almost always swathed in fog, from the mountain tops of nearby islands.
By the 19th century, however, sightings dwindled. But the mysterious eighth island remains alive and well in the imaginations of the residents of the Canary Islands, and the wave that bears its name pays tribute to the legend.
